I'm Michelle. This is my blog. I write about women and fatness, expound upon semi-coherent thoughts I have in the middle of the night, and offer tough love to those in whom I am disappointed; they are legion.

Three Things Stuck in My Craw

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I bet SkyMall sells them. Hand-hammered copper or prismatic titanium; your choice, only $119.99! Never suffer the discomfort of a bloated craw again!

Thing Stuck in My Craw, the First

Underpants with articulated cheeks. I don’t need panels, and seams, and shirring. UNDERPANTS DO NOT REQUIRE RUCHING. My computer does not even recognize the word “ruching” in this post, probably because in the context of “underpants,” it is JUST WRONG. And to not disclose the ruching in the product description? INSIDIOUS.

Dear Underpants Manufacturer: I’m not sure what you think my ass is doing, but I assure you, it’s mostly sitting. Technical performance underpants are not required. Thanks to the unnecessary ruching, your underpants are LITERALLY stuck in my craw.

Thing Stuck in My Craw, the Second

The guy on the crowded uptown C train who sprayed himself (and the pole, and the seat, and several unsuspecting passengers) with cologne. In what universe is this an acceptable thing to do? There’s a reason nobody likes you.

Thing Stuck in My Craw, the Third

People referring to something neutral or multi-purpose as “agnostic.” “She doesn’t have a boyfriend; she’s dating-agnostic.” “It works on Androids and iPhones; it’s system-agnostic.”

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Does she have insufficient evidence to believe in the concept of dating? Is the app unable to determine whether it works on either system? Even if you’re using the broader definition of “non-committal,” it doesn’t quite work.

Please, just use “neutral.” We’ve already butchered the meaning of “literally;” can we leave “agnostic” alone? I don’t ask for much.

I don’t think so. When I here it, it usually means the thing is multi-purpose, like “system-agnostic” or (even more wrongly) that the thing just doesn’t matter (“I work from home, so I can go to a coffee shop; I’m location-agnostic.”). Ambivalence, maybe I could deal with (maybe), but it makes me nutty how the whole “lack of information” part gets tossed aside.

“agnostic” as a suffix is the new “challenged” Short people were vertically-challenged, bald guys were follically-challenged and fat people were gravitationally challenged. Then someone somewhere decided that challenged could take the place of more politically incorrect terms like “handicapped”. Suddenly, it wasn’t cool to refer to anyone as anything-challenged, even people who were once called “handicapped”. Agnostics and atheists are two groups which cannot be insulted, so agnostic it was (at least that’s my version, but then again, I’m generally factually-challenged).

I was just wondering if I was allowed to hate people on my blog. I’ll just say that two suspects were taking an awfully long time asking questions and sniffing tea in accents this afternoon while my new favorite counter-person quietly and surreptitiously took care of my coffee order and prevented a life-ruining rage. Your cologne guy reminded me of excessive Febreeze-users as well. Thanks for showing us what’s in your craw!